


post-mortem.

by BlackCats



Category: Skullgirls
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Odd Syntax, Train of Thought
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 14:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5008864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCats/pseuds/BlackCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She burns in a blaze born from her own fury, but if she finds peace at last, it will be at the end of everything.<br/>(Marie, the Skull Heart, and her best friend’s memory.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	post-mortem.

There is very little left inside of her.

The Skull Heart’s flames coil, pale and glowing, twining around and through her shattered ribcage in grim mockery of something beautiful; it’s a bit like vines, but it represents only the dead and the dying.

(It represents choking too, and Marie supposes it does a marvelous job of that.)

_There’d been vines on the orphanage. Brown and dry. Twisting up through old stone and wood._

Beneath her fingers and beneath her thoughts, it shudders. The Skull Heart pulses and whispers mockeries into her mind. Sometimes she listens, sometimes she doesn’t, but she resists all the same and she remains herself.

She is herself.

Even when the orphans of Romelgrad huddle in horror at the sight of her _(she looks grown up, so grown up in her maid clothes!)_ even when she’s tearing apart men who trade children like cattle— _especially_ then, _especially_ —she is only ever herself. The Medicis and their employees crumble at her feet like toppled building blocks, and Marie feels something like satisfaction.

It is not enough.

She plans to chase Lorenzo Medici to the ends of the world if need-be, and she—

_Patricia’s taken to the dangerous practice of putting unpleasant things in the slavers’ drinks, and Marie’s so afraid; she’s pushing her luck, she really must stop, before the final straw occurs and she…_

_She’s told she worries too much, and her friend’s smile is razor-sharp._ Even then.

“Have you considered resurrecting her?” Double asks, plain and polite with a smile as serene of one befitting her station. She’s a nun about as much as Marie is a maid, and there’s more layers to that metaphor then Marie feels like analyzing at the moment.

Double asks this of her early, when the Skull Heart is only a dull ache in her chest. Breathing is still possible.

“…Who?”

She knows very well.

“It would take only an instant,” Double continues, calm, and there’s something cruel in her smile that Marie had never recognized before now; she’d looked like an angel when they crossed paths in the No-Man’s Land. The Skull Heart laughs, but she’s… _forgotten_ she should. Forgotten that Patricia would have wanted that of her—to remember to find something funny in any situation.

_Patricia._ The name sits heavy in her mind. It doesn’t matter how many days pass. Weeks. She still remembers her. Influenced or not.

But that’s later. It’s early yet.

“N-No. No, never!” It’s horrifying to think of. Patricia, a walking corpse. A cruel mockery of her dearest friend. She wouldn't. Couldn't.

And it’s not as if she knows where she’s buried. It’s possible there’s nothing even left of her to find.

Double is quick to placate her. _“Only a suggestion_ ,” she says, or something to that effect, but Marie will hear no more on the subject.

It is not broached again.

The Skull Heart takes her alive. Eats her from the inside out. Sometimes Marie doesn’t…doesn’t _know_ what she’s been doing. Killing Medicis. Everything tunnels down to that one singular fact, and she loses control in a sense that unsettles her more than outright physical manipulation of her body.

The Skull Heart yields to her will, but slowly it will crush her. The flames will suffocate her, still.

_She’s sobbing too hard to inhale when the slavers fall on Patricia at last._

Marie’s stopped breathing.

Lorenzo will fall before she does. This is a promise. Valentine joins their ranks, and she learns of death’s impermanence.

Lab 8. Photographs. And Patricia’s suddenly _alive_.

Two eyes are on her when this fact is revealed. Valentine’s singular eye, sharp and cunning and curious in the methodical way of scientists. Double’s—stark red, in warning.

Marie pretends it means nothing. The façade lasts all of a few hours before she’s ordering the sparing of as many Lab 8 subjects as possible. Valentine’s smirking at the edge of her mask, and _“Oh really? Are you_ that _concerned?”_ but Marie’s more cautious of Double.

Everything’s a little…

It’s foggy. Even with Patricia before her, it’s getting harder to make sense of things. Sense of what’s _common_ anyway, because slaughtering Medicis, yes, that’s the point, but Patricia— _Peacock_.

She looks happy.

That’s good.

Like those cartoons she enjoys.

Peacock. _Always Patricia_ , to her _._ She doesn’t object to the name but Marie thinks, if she were around her fellow test subjects, she’d probably…probably not be okay with the usage.

Patricia thinks she’s “lost her marbles” as she so daintily puts it. The Skull Heart’s pounding a rhythm in her head. She wishes she’d run. But Patricia is stubborn as she always was.

She’s not much more than a corpse living through false Parasites and robotics _how ironic_ , but that bear-trap grin on her face looks strangely sincere, and Marie—

_They first met because Patricia’s no good at keeping quiet, and Marie has little patience for practical jokers._

Well. It’s good.

Even when she’s defeated. When the Skull Heart’s power at last frees her from its clutches; Patricia’s able to continue on. Look after herself. She won’t forget what happened in Romelgrad. Who did it. What has to be done.

The formalities never quite leave her. Marie’s ever been a courteous sort. But if half her face hadn’t been blown off in the duel—she’s lost an eye, and _oh look, Patricia, we match_ —she’d be smiling about as wide as Patricia right about now.

She thinks about watching cartoons on an old TV with the signal halfway in focus, and Patricia’s laughing beside her because _it’s Annie, she’s the best!_ right before—

It goes black. Everything.

**Author's Note:**

> This is certainly weird but it was written late at night, so please excuse the confusion! The day Marie becomes a playable character is the day I can die happy.


End file.
